


Contact

by aretia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, dystopia au, things are even worse than they are in canon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-28 04:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15040955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/pseuds/aretia
Summary: In the aftermath of Altea’s destruction, Allura’s only protection from the Galra Empire is to hide her identity behind a uniform and a number in one of their factories. She might not be the only one there who wishes for a better life.





	Contact

**Author's Note:**

> For Lotura Week day 4: Dystopia AU

Allura rode to work in a tube. She had every day for the past five years. This factory was the only place where she could be anonymous, and live out a fairly normal life in the shadow of the Galra Empire. When Altea was destroyed, there was no one left to protect her. And since she was wanted by Zarkon as the last living member of the Altean royal family, she had no choice but to go into hiding. 

Hiding identities was what this space station did best. Everyone slept in individual pods, which linked to their own tubes leading straight to their lockers in the factory. When she arrived in her locker, she pulled on her uniform over her clothes. It was a loose silver jumpsuit that hid her figure, so that no one could tell what gender or even what species she was. The uniform covered her from her feet to her fingers to her neck, and once she zipped it up she pulled on her helmet. It was also mirrored silver on the outside, allowing her to see through it while concealing her face. She spoke through a microphone that modulated her voice, and every worker spoke with the same robotic tone.

Even though she sometimes missed the outside world, she knew that she really had nothing to return to. The factory, although it was nowhere close to the life of a princess, had become a sort of home to her. It was all she had. 

When she exited the locker, she stepped into the unending line of other workers filing out of the locker room onto the factory floor. The person walking in front of her was significantly taller than her—that was one thing the uniforms couldn’t hide, as it would be impractical to wear platform shoes to work. They walked with an unusually relaxed gait, not the strict march most of the other workers were taught. They seemed to walk at a slower pace than the others, head turning back and forth and observing the surroundings. 

Allura grumbled in frustration, under her breath, not loud enough for the microphone to pick up. Who did this person think they were, holding up the whole line? They were going to trip the alarms if they kept that up. Just as she followed them into the tunnel leading to the work stations, they stopped completely. Allura didn’t have enough time to react, and her shoulder bumped into theirs.

“Pardon me!” she blurted out by reflex, even though they were the one who should apologize for being rude and stopping so abruptly.

The newcomer turned around to face her. “No, no, I apologize. I should not have been so distracted. My name is—” The speaker garbled what followed that. They weren’t allowed to have names. 

Allura told them as much. “You can’t say your name here,” she said in a harsh whisper, although her accusatory tone didn’t carry through the speaker, much to her regret. 

“Again, I apologize. I was not aware. It’s my first day.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” Allura scoffed. Sarcasm was another forgotten art that was lost to the voice modulator. 

“Hurry up!” someone yelled from behind them in line. Since the dunce in front of her still hadn’t figured it out, she reached out her hand and shoved them in the shoulder, not hard enough to knock them over but enough to send a message.

They stumbled forward, and picked up the pace to catch up to those in front of them in line, but then Allura herself became distracted. Her palm sparked where she had touched their shoulder, as if she had caught a bolt of lightning. Now that she was paying attention to the sensations in her body, she noticed that the same burning feeling was present in her shoulder where they had initially made contact. She couldn’t remember ever feeling like this before. Had she really never touched another being in the last five years? The thought sent a deep loneliness coiling in her chest. 

The person behind her grumbled, and didn’t have the courtesy to keep it quiet enough to avoid the microphone. Allura was startled out of her thoughts and quickly returned to her place in line, right behind the mysterious stranger.

They took their places along the conveyor belt. The newcomer was stationed next to her. Now that she was standing beside them, she angled her head and took note of the number embroidered on their uniform. _L0104_. She would never refer to someone by their number out loud, that would be degrading. But she wanted to remember it, because otherwise they would be lost in the sea of identical uniforms. 

Her helmet vibrated when she had her head turned for too long, a reminder to stop daydreaming and focus on her work. No sooner had she done that than she was distracted again by the stranger addressing her. 

“How long have you been working here?” they asked.

“Five years,” Allura replied curtly. “Less talking, more working.” 

A heavy sigh rasped through their voice modulator, and they turned their eyes back to the conveyor belt. They were assembling control panels for Galra sentries, and each of them had a bucket of parts they had to affix to the boards before they passed by on the conveyor belt. Allura finished hers faster than the pace of the conveyor belt, so she passed it by hand to her overly chatty coworker. Their fingers brushed against hers when the piece changed hands, and she felt that spark again, dancing between their fingertips. 

They seemed to struggle with the soldering gun, so Allura took both of their hands in hers, holding the part in one and the gun in the other. By the time they had finished and placed it back on the conveyor belt, her hands felt as if they were on fire.

She usually breezed through the first few hours of her shift, but this time every second was torture. Why was this happening every time she touched them? Why did it hurt? And why did she feel like she wanted more?

At long last, the buzzers rang announcing their first break. She followed L0104 in the single-file line, through the maze of hallways to the cafeteria. If she didn’t get to the bottom of this now, her curiosity would get the best of her. 

They passed by an alcove in front of a door. Allura grabbed their arm and pulled them into the corner against the wall. Their height difference was even more pronounced now that they were standing only inches away from Allura, and she was at eye level with the number patch on their chest. She could feel the sparks in her hand where she had touched their arm, but the air between them felt electrified as well.

“What are you doing?” they whispered, so low that the microphone didn’t pick it up, but so close that Allura could actually hear it through their helmet. Their voice had a deep timbre and an aristocratic accent like her own, and hearing that little unfiltered piece of them was intoxicating.

“Can I try something?” Allura asked. She waited for a single nod of agreement from her partner, and then without hesitation, she wrapped her arms around their waist and hugged them.

For an instant, it was paradise, pressed so close to another being that she could feel the warmth of their body. It was something she hadn’t experienced since before Altea was destroyed and didn’t realize she’d missed. The other didn’t seem to know what to do, body stiffening and hands hovering in the air before they gingerly found their place on her back, but they didn’t pull away as if they were offended, either. 

Then, the joy was replaced by searing agony. Her whole suit electrocuted her, and she and L0104 both toppled to the ground, convulsing in pain. Red letters flashed across her visor: _Contact detected_. The sparking, burning sensation wasn’t her imagination or some sign of a connection between her and the other worker, but her suit punishing her for making contact, which she didn’t even know was against the rules. The smaller touches had been painless enough to ignore, but she didn’t know if she would survive this one. 

The door they were standing in front of opened, and sentries rushed out of it, grabbing both of them by the back of their uniforms and carrying them down the hallway in opposite directions. “No!” Allura screamed, reaching out to her partner, before they slipped around a corner.

~

Allura fidgeted in the chair in the boss’s office, fingers drumming against her knees. The owner of the factory, Quartermaster Janka, walked in the door and past her to the chair on the other side of the desk. He sat down and steepled his fingers on the desk. “A1164,” he greeted her. It sent a shiver up her spine, being referred to by her number. She was grateful that he couldn’t see her cringe because she was still wearing her mask. “I understand that there was a… _violation_ today.”

Allura decided not to bother denying it. Her reckless act had been caught on all the cameras, so sucking up was the way to go. “That is correct. I am deeply sorry for my inappropriate conduct. If you were to fire me, it would be justified—”

“On the contrary,” said Janka, and he slid a piece of paper across the desk.

“What’s this?” asked Allura.

“A transfer form,” said Janka. “Some would consider it a promotion. You would be working in a solitary office on one of our more delicate projects. Because, you see, even though you are… unable to control yourself around other workers… you are one of our top performers, and you deserve this honor. Should the project succeed, your name would be attached to it, and the whole Empire would know of your talents.”

Allura’s shoulders tensed. Her reaction must have been marked enough for Janka to notice, as she could see the corner of his mouth curl up in amusement. She resumed her rigid posture. “My name?” Allura repeated cautiously. “Do you even know my name?”

“No, but you will write it here on this transfer form,” Janka said, tapping one of the lines with a pen. 

“I’m sorry, but… I don’t want to leave the factory,” Allura said. She didn’t want to lose the protection of the uniform, the anonymity that came with working under a number. If the Empire knew her identity, that wouldn’t be as great an honor as they made it out to be. Besides, she could tolerate the factory life now that she had finally found an ally. Touching her coworker, even though it had gotten her into this mess, had been worth it for the first time she’d felt like a living soul in years. She didn’t want to leave their company so soon. 

“My dear,” Janka chuckled, his phlegmy voice sickening her, “this is not optional.” 

“Do you mind if I take some time to prepare?” she asked.

Janka sighed. “Fine. Tomorrow, you will sign the papers, and we will send you to your new assignment. You are dismissed.” Allura hurried out of the room.

~

Allura slept fitfully that night. When she awoke, at first she thought it was because of nightmares and not because of any external disturbance. But then she heard a sharp sound like tapping against glass.

Allura climbed out of bed and peered out the hexagonal window of her pod. It looked over the artificial atmosphere of the space station, and beyond that, the star-speckled galaxy. Of course, there was nothing there. It sounded a bit like the birds that used to wake her by tapping on the window in her childhood room, but there were no birds that lived on the space station. She was about to return to her bed when she looked down at her feet, and through the domed surface of the window, she saw a face looking up at her.

Allura screamed and stumbled back into her room. The figure climbed up onto her window, apparently using some kind of suction cups on their hands and feet. Then, they used a pocket laser to cut a hole in the window. There was no security inside the sleeping pods, so no alarms sounded when they stepped inside.

It was a man, significantly taller than her, wearing the same under-uniform as she was, a tight-fitting black long-sleeved shirt and pants. He had long white hair, much like her own, except it was straight instead of curly, with a silvery sheen and a single strand dangling in front of his face. Under the reddish-purple glow of the lights in the room, his skin looked lavender—or maybe it really was. He had pointed ears and a sharply chiseled face, and unusually colored eyes, yellow with a blue iris. 

She stood there, examining him, stunned into silence by this person who had just climbed through her window. Then he spoke. “Do not be afraid. I am here to help you.”

She recognized that voice. It was the same one she had heard that day, from the person she had met in the locker room and who had occupied her thoughts ever since.

“It’s you,” Allura murmured in astonishment. “You’re the person I met today. How did you find me?”

“Well, after I got fired for what happened today,” he said nonchalantly, “I hacked into the records and looked up your number, and found the location of the pod where you lived. I saw that you were going to be transferred, so I knew I had to work quickly in order to find you. Then it was just a matter of climbing up the wall until I found it.”

“You got fired?” Allura asked. So much of that statement was utter nonsense, but for some reason, that was the part she commented on. 

“Yes,” he replied, still unperturbed.

“I’m so sorry that I got you fired,” she said.

“It’s no matter. I didn’t belong here,” he said cryptically.

“Who are you?” Allura asked.

“Oh! Pardon my presumption. I thought I had already told you my name.” He seemed naïve, saying his name freely and not realizing that the speaker had hidden it, but perhaps there was a reason why he wanted her to know it. Maybe he was used to getting things because of his name, something Allura had known too, before her name had become her curse.

“I am Lotor, prince of the Galra,” he announced. “Former. _Exiled_ prince of the Galra. My father sent me here to ‘teach me discipline,’ so it’s for the better that I leave now.” He cleared his throat. “I apologize. That’s no way to make someone’s acquaintance. What is your name?”

“A…” Allura began to say it, but her breath caught in her throat. She had been so used to reciting her number, and holding her tongue when she thought of saying her name, that it almost felt foreign in her mouth. But she wasn’t going to tell him her life story like he just had. And even if he already knew her name, for some reason, she trusted him not to run back and tell it to Zarkon. He didn’t seem to have the best relationship with the man either, after all. “Allura,” she said finally.

“Pleasure to meet you, Allura,” said Lotor, in that honey-smooth voice that was even more enchanting when it wasn’t muffled by a mask. He held out his arm to her.

Allura clasped his arm at the elbow in the traditional Galra greeting. She noticed that while she almost expected to feel the spark again when she touched him, it didn’t come, because they were no longer separated by their uniforms, only cloth and skin. There were still sparks, but a different kind—the warmth of his hand against her arm, the blush flaring in her cheeks, and the tingle of longing when he pulled his hand away.

“I must leave tonight regardless,” said Lotor “But if you want, I would gladly take you with me.”

“Why?” Allura asked.

“Because you’re the only person in that factory who seems like you still have some part of yourself left,” Lotor said, eyes shining with unexpected earnestness. “But I would understand if you want to take the transfer instead.”

“I can’t,” Allura admitted. “It isn’t safe for me. I need to get out of here anyway, so… It would be my pleasure to join you.”

Lotor’s face lit up. “Then… shall we?” He offered his arm to her. Hesitantly, Allura wrapped her hand around his elbow. 

They leaned out the hole in the window, the artificial wind whipping past their faces. “Now what?” Allura asked.

“There’s a shipment leaving from the top of this building tonight. If we can sneak onto that ship, we can escape.”

“How are we going to get up there?” said Allura.

Lotor reached into a bag that he had on his hip and pulled out a small mechanical device, that looked like he had taken apart one of the guns from the factory and added a spool of cable and a grappling hook at the end. 

“I made it myself. It works. Trust me,” Lotor insisted, as if he could read the doubt that was probably plain to see on Allura’s face. 

A nagging thought in the back of her mind told her that she shouldn’t go along with him so easily. She was tempted, and it wasn’t as if she had any other options. Staying and waiting for the transfer would be a death sentence. But she wasn’t sure if trusting the person who had just broken into her room was the right choice, either. “Why should I trust you?” she asked, though her wide eyes looking up at him clearly said that she wanted to.

Then, Lotor’s hand slid around her waist. He pulled her close, and she brought up both of her hands to brace herself against his chest, startled. “Are you not the one who did _this_ to me at the factory?” Lotor said. “I think you already do. Now let me earn your trust.” 

He leaned out the window and shot the grappling hook up into the air, and it caught on a balcony far above them. He tugged on the cable to test its strength, and then leaned out of the window enough that he put most of his weight on it. “Hold on,” he said.

Allura wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and Lotor’s grip around her waist with his one arm tightened while he held on to the gun with the other. He pushed his feet off of the ledge and they both swung out into the open air. 

Allura’s heart was pounding fast, but not from fear of the chasm looming below them. Lotor’s body was warm in spite of the cold wind, and he held her so protectively that she didn’t know what to make of it. She leaned her head against his chest and closed her eyes. She could hear his heart pounding just as frantically as her own. Then, she felt the pressure in her ears change as they ascended, toward an unknown and unbounded future.


End file.
